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Saturday, 31 January 2015

Roll off to determine which player gets the first turn. Each player gets the standard 10 dice. On your turn you declare your action, your opponent then declares their equivalent action. You draw a card and roll your dice. If you succeed you perform your action, if not your opponent performs theirs. It is then your opponents turn, they declare their action, you declare your equivalent, and then they draw a card and roll their dice.

Thursday, 29 January 2015

So I played another game again today with similar forces. Sir Gildain his Squire Pharen and their wizard friend Tannik faced off against Lord Urleth and his Zombies. It did not go well for Sir Gildain and his companions. Sir Gildain faced off against a Zombie in the middle of the field and was soon overwhelmed by more arriving and the infamous Lord Urleth. Pharen managed to reach Gildain slaying a Zombie on the way but more soon arrived. Finally Tannik got moving and attempted something drastic, he tried to pull a tree up from its roots and cause it to fall on a Zombie to free up Gildain's withdrawl. Unfortunately it fell on Gildain knocking him unconscious. Pharen then lunged desperately at Urleth hoping to dissuade him, but was knocked flat, and like his liege was out of the fight. Urleth then leapt the fallen tree as Tannik retreated to a ruined house to make his final stand. Tannik attempted a risky spell, casting an arc of energy to shoot Urleth from his horse and out of the battle. However Urleth's apparent magical resistance again came into play. The arc reflected from his black armour and struck Tannik. The day was lost, and once again the vile necromancer Urleth escaped.

I had a lot of fun with the game, and realised the openness of the system really opens things up, especially for those magic characters. All I had to declare was what Tannik wanted to use his magic to do, and then an equivalent - no spell list needed, no long list of points values and the system automatically balances itself.

The card system also really came into its own. The reason things went south so quickly was because I knew I only had a few cards remaining in the deck and if I hadn't taken out Urleth by the time they were gone he would automatically escape, this pushed me to make rash decisions, and it didn't help that at the time I was running low on dice!

I need to play with more ranged characters that aren't mages though. the challenge of thinking of an equivalent action when not using something as chaotic as magic should be interesting. A crossbow will either hit or miss, it's not likely to deflect and hit the firer!

Sunday, 25 January 2015

A selection of heroes yet unnamed except for Kora the female barbarian, and yes the one in the middle is a dwarf. The guys without flock on their bases are not quite finished yet.

Centaurs!

The Centaur leader up close.

So I tried a little game with the top most two forces using the ideas from my previous post, Lord Urleth and his horde and the Knights of the Green Blade. It was a really simple set up as the two forces faced each other on completely open ground, although the way I'm going for movement rules I should really have played with more terrain.

The zombies slowly advanced while all of Tannik's magic managed to backfire incapacitating him before combat had even been joined. The zombie's split with two attacking Sir Gildain and the other two going after Pharen. The zombies seemed strangely tougher than normal with two managing to down Pharen, and as they attempted to bite their way through his armour, Sir Gildain downed his two, but he came off worse for ware. As he stumbled about attempting to regain his composure Lord Urleth charged, his sword at the Knight's neck height. Sir Gildain dodged at the last second and struck a blow that would have easily killed a mortal man. Lord Urleth rode off, leaking his black blood down his horses flank. The Knights of the Green Blade had been victorious but at what cost?

The game played so quickly I didn't really have the time to take pictures, but I have to say it probably was one of the better solo experiences I have had, and thinking about the rules I can see why, it's essentially one step up from playing as a child would with the dice, cards and abilities determining the outcome of events rather than just your imagination. Also it's a fun challenge to manage your dice well, and knowing when to roll lots of them and when to hold back.

It was a simple 9pt game. The forces stacking up as follows:

Sir Gildain - Devastate, Immortal, Elite.

Pharen Thark - Devastate.

Tannik Druze - Ranged, Heal.

Lord Urleth - Devastate, Immortal, Elite, Fast.

Zombie (x4) - no abilities.

Devastate increased the strength of any wounds dealt by 1.

Immortal reduced the strength of any wounds dealt to a character by 1.

Ranged enabled a character to attack at range.

Heal enabled a character to heal wounds.

Fast enables a character to move twice.

A character has a base cost of 1pt and then costs 1pt extra per ability they have.

Grab a deck of cards with all the kings, queens and jacks removed, so you get a deck of Aces to 10s. Then take a large number of six sided dice and take ten of those and put them to one side. The deck is your game deck, and the 10 dice are your dice pool.

Set up your table with your figures and with your scenario in mind.

Declare what you want one of your figures to do and then declare a roughly equivalent action one of the enemy figures will do.

Draw a card (always draw the card after you declare the two actions, never before!), if it's red it increases your dice pool by the number on it. Aces=1. If it's black it locks a number of dice in your pool equal to it meaning you cannot use them in the roll. Pick up a number of dice you want to roll and roll them. The action you declared for your figure is performed if you roll a single 6. If no 6s are rolled then the action you declared for the enemy figure is performed. You must always roll at least 1 die, unless the black card locks all your dice in which case you automatically fail.

Return any rolled dice to the big pile, declare two new actions and then draw a card.

Repeat this process until the deck is exhausted or you complete the scenario objective.
If you haven't completed the objective by the time the deck is exhausted you automatically lose the game.

You could play the game as simply as that. You could enforce a stats system on top of it, whereby when an action is 'performed' it still needs to be rolled for. For example, I failed and so get charged by an enemy and attacked, the enemy can only move up to their move stat in inches, and will only hit me when they get there on a roll that is equal to or lower than their fight stat. You could on the other hand impose a system of special rules. For example - I declare that my warrior will strike the enemy causing a light wound on their barbarian, the equivalent is obvious, he will attack me instead and cause a light wound. I draw the card and roll. I score a 6 meaning my warrior hits the barbarian. My warrior however has the special rule 'devastate' which turns any light wounds caused into heavy wounds, so although I declared a light wound I deal a heavy wound. The enemy barbarian does not have the special rule devastate, so had I failed the roll, my warrior would only have taken a light wound.

Thursday, 22 January 2015

Since the system is at present incredibly generic with basically no special rules, it is still incredibly easy to entirely randomise a force creation. This will be good for me in the playtesting and to see if any set up can break or really challenge the points system.

When playing solo you should generate your own force first, and make a note of their own points cost. For example in previous playtests I've been using a 120pt force. You would then roll for the scenario (which is a system I'm working on) which will dictate the nature of an enemy force, it maybe a force you have previously generated so there's no need to randomly generate one again. You then roll for resistance level on a D6, on 1-2 it's low, 3-4 it's matched and on 5-6 it's high. Each of these results gives a rough points cost for the force you will be facing. Matched means the enemy force is roughly equal to your own, with a margin of 20pts on either side (which may be larger for larger forces). Low means you generate the force but as soon as it exceeds you own forces points cost you drop the last character generated. For high resistance you stop at the character that exceeds your forces points cost. For matched you stop when the points cost lands within that 40pt buffer zone (20pts either side).

So let's go with my 120pt force. I roll for resistance - 2 which is low. So I'm dropping the first character to exceed 120pts in the enemy forces total points cost.
CHARACTER 1, INI:6, ATT:3, SPD:2, RES:5. PTS:35 TYPE - WARRIOR
CHARACTER 2, INI:3, ATT:5, SPD:1, RES:5, PTS:23 TYPE - WARRIOR
CHARACTER 3, INI:5, ATT:2, SPD:1, RES:5, PTS:20 TYPE - WARRIOR
CHARACTER 4, INI:4, ATT:5, SPD:3, RES:5, PTS:37 TYPE - MAGE
So that's a running total of 115pts, so I'm certain the next character will exceed the final 5 pts so we won't go on.
So how did I generate those characters?
Initiative, Attack and Speed were all simple D6 rolls. Resolve was D6+2 (I couldn't stop rolling 3s), and the type was determined by a further D6 roll (1-2 Warrior, 3-4 Ranger, 5-6 Mage).
If you can't remember how the points costs were generated it was (Attack+Speed)xInitiative and finally adding Resolve.
You could then go on to generate names for the characters if you so wished.
For forces you have already generated you drop or add characters to meet the resistance level. When dropping I would recommend dropping the character that brings you closest to the points cost.
The system shouldn't cause too many problems and it shouldn't generate hugely outlandish characters, with your lowest points cost at 5 and your highest running to 80. With most stats capped at 6 except for resolve which is capped at 8, it's unlikely you'll get totally wrecked in a single attack from an enemy character. I am however concerned about speed and may apply a D6+1 to it instead of a straight D6 as above. Assuming the character can spend half of their initiative on speed before the end counter is drawn, Character 2 above will cover roughly 1.5 inches per game turn... which is really slow!
The other problem I'm working on is the counter system. Since when generating a new force new counters would have to be made, a total of 18 for the force above. I'm working on a system which means you won't have to, but we'll see what comes of that in the future.

Wednesday, 21 January 2015

I felt that my previous incarnation with twists on a D6 roll was a little too restrictive and not fast enough. So here's the simpler new incarnation of the system.

Roll 1D10 for name length.
Roll 1D10 to determine starting letter type - Odd = Vowel, Even = Consonant.
It's then the classic vowels on a D6 (including Y) and Consonants on a D20.
This time however you also roll a D6 after you've generated a letter. On a 6 the letter repeats. On a 4 or 5 you repeat the letter type but roll for the next letter, and on a 1-3 you go to the other letter type. You can only have a maximum of two of the same letter or letter type in a row.

Much simpler. Let's give it a whirl!

Fji Qxiag
Kkiwecihy Szyyduy
Uuwe Mtoe

Those are our 'raw' results. Just what the dice dictate, and with some editing we get -

Ji Xia
Kiwe Szyydu
Uwe Toe (I was hoping for Boll... but Toe will have to do)

Eventually I'll get a system together that stops those bad letter combinations but until then the system will always have a chance of churning them out. Though it's true purpose still works, to generate names that don't all sound the same, which is what I can't do when I come up with the names myself.

Monday, 19 January 2015

I played a quick solo game this evening using my second incarnation of the Skirmyth rules. A system with more visible stats, but still with no real need to look anything up. Characters are activated when a counter with their name on it is pulled from a cup, the counter has written on it not only the characters name but their speed and attack stats. The number of counters a character has in the cup is equal to their initiative value. Speed determines the distance a character can move in inches when their counter is drawn and attack determines the number of dice a character will roll when making attacks. They do damage equal to the number of successes they score on the dice rolled (Warriors 4+, Rangers 5+ and Mages 6+). Apart from character counters there are also joker counters in the cup. Jokers stay out of the cup until the 'end' counter is drawn but return all other counters to the cup. When the end counter is finally drawn the number of jokers determines which column on a table is rolled on to determine a random event. For example in my game, two jokers were drawn and so when the end counter was drawn I rolled a die and consulted the event table, for two jokers and a roll of a 6 there was a small earth tremor which caused both sides to take morale checks. Morale is currently an extremely simple system. When a character is killed or you are forced to take a morale check by other means pick up a die per character still alive on your side and roll them. You pass the morale check if you roll a single 4+, if you fail to roll any 4+s you fail the check and lose the game. I thought it might be too simple initially but it creates a really interesting dynamic - you don't want a small number of hugely powerful characters because you'll get less dice when making morale checks, on the other hand you don't want a huge number of weak characters because that will normally mean you have to make more morale checks. I also thought it might create unrealistic scenarios where heroes flee from much weaker foes, however should a band of heroes lose a character surely their concern is no longer the mission, but protecting and restoring that fallen character to health? So in that sense it portrays greater realism. The real strength of it however is in the fact that morale is controlled by a standard dice roll meaning you never have to look anything up. The number of dice you roll being the number of remaining characters you have!

This evening I played a simple 4 vs 5 line up and charge at each other game.
On the one side we had -

The game was supposed to be 120pts, however while writing this up I realised that Prince Lorek's force was 125 points... but considering Sir Gildain tabled him without losing a man it's not like those extra 5 points really helped.

The game played exceedingly quickly. I remember reading lots of rulebooks where games claim to be 'fast paced' but this one truly is, with a standard skirmish like this taking around 10 minutes to play. You may also notice I was intentionally trying to break the game with characters like Kel Krace and Ajen Low, Kel having a huge number of activations but being pretty weak and Ajen only a single activation but devastating when he does activate.

So what have I learned and what questions have this little playtest brought to light?
Primarily I need to decide what route I want the main focus of the game to take. At present I'm playing it much like your average skirmish game where two evenly matched albeit different forces face off, rather than a dungeon crawling, hack and slash style game with multiple enemies each far weaker than our main characters.
Secondly I need to decide how damage dealt is increased by circumstances - at the moment if your characters remaining resolve is double their targets the amount of damage they do is doubled, and tripled if triple etc. Alternatively if two characters are ganging up on another the damage dealt is doubled. I need to playtest further to see if this is too dramatic an increase and maybe adding rather than multiplying would be more appropriate. Obviously +0 if no damage is dealt, +1 if resolve is higher, +2 if double, +3 if triple, and +1 per additional character in the combat.
Thirdly I need to develop the actual solo AI mechanics.
Fouthly I need to develop scenarios to make the game more interesting/ narrative.

Friday, 16 January 2015

I like the simplicity of my current system. Each character has a number of cards equal to their speed and attack stats. For example a character with speed 3 and attack 7 will get 3 speed cards and 7 attack cards in the deck, and it works really well in play. The only problem is the mass of cards required to play the game.

The flip side of this is for each character to have 1 card with all their stats on, and when a characters card is drawn a player gets to decide which action to perform based on the stats of the character on the card.

So we have - System 1 - Each point of a stat has a card, and System 2 - Each character has a single card with all their stats on.

The question is then, is there a middle way? A way between these two extremes?

Yes, what if a character has some cards containing their stats (say speed, shooting, melee) the number of which was equal to their initiative stat. For example a character of initiative 4 would have 4 cards in the deck with their stats on. When one of their cards are drawn the player in control of them would be allowed to select an action to perform based on the stats on the card.

This may drastically change the current system I have, but it removes the need for saving cards since you would never draw a card that you couldn't use. I can also still use the standard rolls for types - Warriors hit on a 4+, Rangers 5+, Mages 6+.
Your stat earns you a number of dice equal to it, the amount of damage you deal in an attack is equal to the number of successes you roll - Warriors 4+, Rangers 5+, Mages 6+.

Further notes -
Warriors hit on a 4+ and have no ranged ability.
Rangers hit in a 5+ and have a ranged ability. Characters further than 12" away are hit on a 6+ as are characters in cover. Characters further than 12" away and in cover are hit on a 6+ and you half the number of dice you roll.
Mages hit on a 6+ and have a ranged ability, their attacks are not effected by range or cover and they can spread damage dealt among multiple targets as they desire.

A characters total points value is equal to the total of the stats on their cards, speed, shoot and melee, multiplied by their initiative (the number of cards) and finally adding their resolve (hit points).

Multiple enemies can all be controlled by the same card drawn, for example all zombies could act when a zombie card is drawn. To make things really interesting why not include counters on the board that represent enemies that have not yet been spotted (including some decoys?), that all move when an 'unseen enemies' card is drawn, and they all make a standard 3" move towards the nearest player character.

Why not include more than 1 joker, and a different card that signifies the turn end. When a joker is drawn all cards are reshuffled into the deck, but the joker drawn is placed to one side. When the turn end card is drawn the number of jokers drawn could signify something, maybe you roll on a random event table, adding the number of jokers drawn to increase the severity of the event? Or the number of jokers dictate the number row on a table you roll on...

Thanks for stopping by, and if you've read this, thanks for putting up with my ramblings!
WGP

Tuesday, 13 January 2015

Reflecting on my previous post in this series I drew up a simple set of rules. The goal of which was to eliminate the need for statlines, which while they exist are effectively invisible. My first attempt works as follows, a character has 3 stats, Attack, Speed and Resolve. The Resolve of a character is equal to their level, and the Attack and Speed when totalled are equal to their level. My hero, Sir Gildain Knight of the Green Sword, has Attack 7, Speed 3, Resolve 10 and is level 10, simple enough. Resolve is the number of hit points a character has, once Sir Gildain has taken 10 points of damage he is out of the game. Speed and Attack are converted into cards that go in the game deck. Sir Gildain gets 7 attack cards and 3 speed cards (or alternatively counters in a cup). When a speed card is drawn, Sir Gildain gets to move D6". When an attack card is drawn Sir Gildain gets to make an attack, or if he can't he can save the card for later.

Here's Sir Gildain and his cards, I just used playing cards with labels stuck to them. The top row say 'Sir Gildain Attack', the bottom row say 'Sir Gildain Speed' (maybe 'run' would make more sense).

Battles are fought between equally effective forces, just use their levels like a points system. For example -
The Heroes

Warrior - No ranged ability, hits in melee on a 4+.
Ranger - 5+ to hit at range or in melee.
Mage - 6+ to hit at range or in melee, magic user.

Once you have all your cards shuffle them with a single joker included, and draw the top card to begin playing. Here's a little playtest battle report, I'm not adding much flavour but simply listing the cards drawn at what happened so you get an idea of how things work -

The two sides face off against each other, on a rather barren plain...

A speed card is drawn for Kora and she charges 6" forwards, then the same is drawn again, she rolls a 4 but opts to only move 2", so she doesn't get too far ahead of her companion.

The Krug the shaman draws an attack card and saves it, Agaz draws 2 attack cards and also opts to save them.

Sir Gildain draws 1 attack and saves it. He then draws a speed, rolls a 1, and steps forward. He then draws 4 successive attack cards and opts to save them all.

Then the joker is drawn, returning all saved and used cards to the deck, it is shuffled and play begins again.

After the first bout of cards, the two forces are nearing each other, who will get first blood?

The Agaz charges Kora while the archer fires at her and and misses.
Sir Gildain saves an attack.
The archer fires at Kora again and rolls a 1, missing by miles.

Sir Gildain saves another attack.

The Orc shaman saves an attack and then runs up behind Agaz the axe Orc for protection. Agaz saves an attack.

Kora saves 2 attacks.

The archer fires at Kora again and misses, Boleg needs to get to the firing range more often!

Kora saves another attack.

Sir Gildain saves 4 successive attacks.

Kora saves another.

Kora draws a speed card and charges Agaz, if she makes it into base to base she'll get a free attack, and can use her other saved cards in the attack too! She makes it the distance and uses her speed card and all 4 attack cards together getting her a total of 5 attack dice. She could opt to go all out, meaning she rolls 1D6 and on a 4+ does maximum damage and on a 1-3 does no damage, or she can roll 1D6 for each card.

Here we are, with cards and dice before the roll!

And there's the roll, a devastating one!

Kora does damage for every 4+ rolled because she is a warrior type. Damage would normally be 1 point per successful die, however since Kora's level is double that of the character she is attacking, she does 2 damage per successful die. Had Sir Gildain been in base contact with the Orc too, she would have done 1 extra damage per successful die. But as it stands with 4 successes, and 2 damage per success, she does a total of 8 damage. The Orcs resolve of 5 is no match and he is killed. Kora immediately draws a speed card and charges after the shaman but comes just short.

Bazgar draws another speed card and makes it into contact with Kora, but only rolls a 2 when using his free attack failing to damage her.

Boleg the archer draws an attack card, with Kora in contact with Bazgar he cannot shoot her, so he opts to attack the rather slow, Sir Gildain. He manages a 5 and does 1 point of damage.

Kora draws an attack card, rolls a 6 and slams Bazgar for 2 damage.

The Joker is drawn.

After the second joker, Sir Gildain is still slowly moving forwards under fire while Kora faces off against the berserker.

The Orc berserker tired of fighting Kora attempts a charge on Sir Gildain, he makes it in but rolls a 1 on his attack, his poorly maintained axe bounces off of the Knight's pristine armour. Boleg takes a shot at the now exposed Kora and fails to hit.

Kora charges the shaman and fails in her attack, she then wheels round and charges Bazgar but misses him too. Sir Gildain opts to save his attack card. Kora then attacks the berserker and misses.

Sir Gildain attacks using his saved card also, he chooses not to go all out, needing only a single success to score enough damage to kill the berserker, he rolls a double 2, failing on both dice and doing nothing. He then draws a speed card which he opts to ignore.

Kora bounces off of the berserker, leaving him in Sir Gildain's hands and again charges the shaman, but again she misses.

Boleg saves his attack card, since both his targets are in melee combat with his friends. The shaman opts to back off from Kora giving the archer something to shoot at, and luckily for him, forcing Kora to save the attack card she draws next.

Boleg shoots at Kora, using both his attack cards, and scores 1 hit resulting in 1 damage.

Sir Gildain saves an attack card and then draws a speed, enabling him to attack Bazgar with two dice!

He rolls a 2 and a 6, scoring him 3 points of damage (2 for being double the level of Bazgar and an extra one since Bazgar is also in contact with Kora), the berserker is killed. Kora then charges the archer and the shaman and misses both free attacks,

Boleg the archer saves an attack card.

Sir Gildain saves two attack cards.

Boleg draws another attack and uses his saved card too, he rolls a 5 and a 2, scoring 1 point of damage on Kora.

Krug the shaman draws another attack card and opts to cast a spell, if he succeeds he will do 5 damage to Sir Gildain, if he fails to cast the spell will backfire doing 5 damage to himself. He rolls a 4 and two 2s, with no successes (6+), the spell backfires and he is killed.

To speed things up, Kora and Sir Gildain then chase the archer down and finish the Orcs off by killing him.

I'm using D10s to keep track of resolve. If you use the dice to keep track of remaining hit points rather than damage done it means you only have to look up a stat the first time a character is damaged.

POST PLAYTEST THOUGHTS...

The game as it stands plays incredibly quickly, although to speed things up I do want to develop a morale system games where you fight to the last man often turn into a boring, going through the motions type game rather than being interesting or dynamic towards their latter half. I also noticed the importance of speed over attack. Kora although her attack was lower managed to kill 2 Orcs to Sir Gildain's 1 who spent most of his time playing catch-up (maybe his armour was too heavy). This isn't a problem with the balance of speed vs attack, it just means that Sir Gildain has to be played in a certain way. He may take a while to get to the fight, but once he's there, he's pretty devastating.

The card mechanic works perfectly, the only chore being having to make the cards. I think in the end I will opt for counters drawn from a cup, but until then it works fine. What I like most about the card mechanic is it builds in character quality without any additional characteristics. The higher level a character, the more cards they have, the more likely they are to get cards before the joker is drawn! This is why opted for a card per point of stat rather than the stat on a single card. Sure it means more cards or counters, but it gives you something extra for your troubles. Something strange I did notice was that I no longer looked at characters as a line of stats because I couldn't see their stats, but I felt the characters. That may seem like a strange sentence and it is, because I've never experienced that in a game.

Although the game doesn't currently have a solo mechanic built in I have left space for it, by which I mean that when a card is drawn it's a really simple decision for an AI to make since your decisions are so restricted. For a speed card warriors are most likely to charge the nearest enemy, and rangers and mages are most likely going to use them to keep their distance. AI controlled Rangers and warriors will always use their attack cards as they appear, saving them only if they can't use them, since mathematically it makes no difference. Mages will be more likely to hold on to their attack cards so they can cast spells but I devised a simple system for that while playing. The magic system which is 3 lines in the current rules allows any spell you can imagine and is fully reversible, meaning you will come up with horribly cunning spells for the AI to cast on your own characters more on that another time.

The rules even have room for a full leveling up system, which in it's first iteration is as follows -
1 XP per enemy character your character killed.
1 XP per objective achieved by your character.
Pick up an number of D6s equal to the total XP gathered by your character and roll them.
The character levels up 1 level per 4+ rolled.
The new levels can be used on either attack or defence in any way you choose!

For example here's what I actually rolled after the fight -
Kora killed 2 enemies and so gets 2 dice, she rolled a 5 and a 6 taking her up to level 12. She opts to put 1 level into speed and the other into attack.
Sir Gildain killed 1 enemy, and luckily rolls a 4. He opts to put it into speed (for obvious reasons).

The leveling up system fits because of the card system, it's easy to include any number of stats because you can add any number of cards to the deck, you're not limited by the dice used, a stat can be more than 1-6 or 1-20 or even, if you're crazy 1-100.

That was a long one, but thanks for sticking with it and thanks for stopping by!
WGP

Monday, 12 January 2015

The above figure is one of my first attempts at 1/72 plastic conversions. The body is an American WW2 soldier and the head is a Gaul. The conversion was done with one of Games Workshop's drills, a paper clip and super glue. I'm really happy with how easy the conversion work was to do, and I look forward to doing more. I'm feeling a Weird World War project coming on, and maybe this guy currently named Baron Ace will lead some Allied forces into battle! Considering I should be able to get a full platoon out of the box of gauls and my current collection of Revell WW2 American plastics, I'm rather excited!

Wednesday, 7 January 2015

Playing Solo wargames can be fun, the only problem is that most rulesets are not designed for solo gaming, and those that have a solo option to play often have their solo elements tacked on to a two player ruleset, there aren't really any wargames I know of that were built as a solo experience from the ground up.

So what's the main problem when it comes to solo gaming?

In my experience it's looking up statlines. I'm happy to play both sides when there's no decent engine to run an AI opponent the only problem is you don't have two minds to remember statlines. This creates a constant flicking from game to army list or game to the more convenient but still tedious unit card. The goal then is to create a game that either has no statlines - every body hits on a 4+, or whereby the stats are there but invisible. How is that possible?

I've wondered about using a card driven system. Where each unit has a card for each stat - move, shoot, melee etc. And when the card is drawn the unit can choose to act upon the card or save the card. When the unit acts upon the card the card has the stat written on it - '5+' for example - roll your D6, no need to look it up. The problem comes with armour, or defence values, because as 'passive' stats a character wouldn't have the card in the deck. What would you do if you drew your characters 'armour' card? Nothing, but maybe save it for an attack... and then if your character hadn't drawn their armour card would they die instantly from an attack? Another idea I had was to write the defence value of the character on the base, but that can mess with the aesthetics of a game, and annoyingly practically excludes a character improvement system... unless you're willing to keep painting over and painting new numbers on bases. Hit points then seem a likely system. A higher defence character simply has more hit points. This works well enough... but does have the added drawback of the need to keep track of hit points, which for me normally means dice cluttering up the play area.

Is there an easy solution? Is this even a problem, or is it just me? Stay tuned as I mull this one over and come back with a part 2.

Monday, 5 January 2015

Apart from a Games Workshop my nearest proper town has a couple of
'actual' model shops, by that I mean shops that sell models for scale modellers.
Along with the tanks, planes and ships are the plethora of figures in varying
scales. This has led me into gaming in a number of periods, and having a
growing collection of 1/72 figures. People talk of how great it is now to game
something like Saga which only requires a single box of Wargames Factory
figures, where for years the same number of troops could be bought in the 1/72
scale for less than a quarter of the price of the modern 'cheap' plastics. 1/72
figures are not only cheaper than their bigger brothers; they are also often
better sculpted and use the actual proportions of real people! Which funnily
enough, has been a barrier to me in previous years, having come into gaming
around 40k's fourth edition; I normally expect larger heads, hands and weapons.
But let’s not continually praise the little work horses of the wargaming world,
the 1/72 infantryman, which for so many of us was the first figure we ever
owned. Let's move now to defending that heritage and my own anal retentiveness
by addressing the question of scale.

It has come to my attention that a number
of people are referring to our 1/72 friends as 20mm, which was most noticeably said
by an unnamed (for their safety) online wargaming news outlet. Let's be clear
here, there are a number of different ways manufacturers and gamers measure
scale. The difference in from foot to eye level or from foot to top of head
often creates a little difference in the heights of certain figures. It's not
often an Airfix figure will match closely an Italeri in height, but that's no
problem, since people come in different sizes. One thing however is that
neither are 20mm! I point the finger solely at Games Workshop and their
increasingly bloated figures that really push the limits of 28mm scale. Even
Mantic games their comparatively small nemesis calls their figures 30mm scale
and their figures often are shorter than Workshop's. So you pick up your Space
Marine and stand him next to your Italeri British Para, and you think, 'Well,
this Space Marine is 28mm, and this Para is tiny so he can't be 25mm he must be
smaller... around about 20mm should fit.' Instantly you have moved from doing
real scales and wandered off the path into the world of pure fantasy. Take out
a bloomin' measuring tape and look at the real heights! Of if you don't have
any to hand, jump on Plastic Soldier Review and check the reviews which include
an accurate measurement of figure heights, with Airfix on average coming in at
around 22mm, Italeri and Revell at 24mm and some reaching 26mm. Bearing in mind
Plastic Soldier Review measures from foot to eye level to be more precise than
the imprecise method of foot to top of head because some people like wearing
big hats. Or if that is not enough to convince you a quick check of the Wikipedia
page for figure scales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_figure_%28gaming%29)
which claims 25/28mm scale is 1/73.2 scale.

Most gamers are aware that a 1/72 figure
is vastly taller than 20mm. However some aren't the majority of which have
moved from Games Workshop's games into the world of historical gaming, for which
we have things like Saga, Flames of War and Bolt Action to thank. Remind these
folks that 1/72 is not 20mm, but is in fact true 25mm. I cannot pass judgement
too harshly on these poor people for I was once one of them, and had it not
been for the classic game Starguard (which is 25mm) recommending the use of
converted 1/72 vehicles I would never have noticed either.

I fear for our hobby, as it moves into
bleak and gothic territory in the future, as Games Workshop's figures increase
in size to apocalyptic proportions, near life size, and have to be shifted by a
team of sweaty men at the command of spotty teenagers. All the while being
claimed to be heroic 28mm scale, and our stalwart heroes the 1/72 infantrymen
are relegated to lower and lower scales till people scoff at my 2mm armies. But
I'll still use them, I'll still pull out my true 25mm friends, because they've
always been there, they always will be there, in boxes of 50 for pocket money
prices, just as good old Featherstone liked it.

WELCOME ALL!

Welcome to my new and improved war gaming blog. Here you'll find all sorts of stuff, a little bit of GW, a little bit of Mantic, hopefully lots of stuff from Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk, and a little bit of homebrew gaming!